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San Antonio Rampage Drop Season-Opener 2-1 To Texas Stars

A crowd of 7,439 arrived for the beginning of San Antonio’s latest AHL campaign from the AT&T Center on Saturday evening; many departing disappointed after the hometown Rampage failed to score for 59 minutes. Texas garnered its two goals in the first period, courtesy of captain Maxime Fortunus and forward Toby Petersen.

Heroics by Rampage forward Drew Shore provided some very late excitement for local fans with goaltender Dov Grumet-Morris pulled at 19:03, bringing the game to within a goal but ultimately no closer; Tyson Strachan and Jon Rheault were credited with the assists. Grumet-Morris started in net for San Antonio over Jacob Markstrom (not a health issue) and had a quality start with 32 saves (.941 Sv%).

The Good

  • PK: Rampage penalty killers stopped all eight Texas powerplay opportunities. This is the primary reason why they lost by only a single goal.
  • Grumet-Morris did everything he could to keep San Antonio in the game, stopping 94.1% of the shots he faced (32 saves) and making several highlight-style saves in net. And he wasn’t even named one of the three stars, on his own ice./

The Bad

  • Penalties taken: already covered the terrific job Chuck Weber’s PK performed, but you can’t win games like this (40 minutes in penalties by San Antonio alone), especially when the Rampage “kill” was 20th in the American League a season ago.

The Ugly

  • The offense: San Antonio generated only 19 shots, 10 in the first period. While penalties were a huge reason, 4 shots in the third period – when the team is down – is awful. Rheault and James Wright tied for the team lead in shots Saturday evening with 3 each(!).

Box Score via TheAHL.com

Next Up: Sunday vs Houston, 4:30 p.m. (ET)

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